Larry Greenfield: Is religious revivalism in the air?

A unique event was held at the Congregation B'nai Israel on March 20, 2013. The Confirmation Class (the 10th graders) hosted a &#8220;hunger seder&#8221; for Hebrew Highstudents. The special Passover service highlighted the issue of hunger in Orange County. REGISTER PHOTO

The spring holidays are deeply meaningful to many American families.

The Passover week honors God's redemption of His people from slavery.

The most widely practiced Jewish ritual, the Seder meal, a "festival of freedom," re-tells the ancient story of the Exodus from Egypt, reminding us to cherish our liberty today.

Easter Sunday is the most important and oldest festival of the Christian Church, celebrating the resurrection of Christ and his loving sacrifice for all mankind.

Jesus' last supper was a Passover meal, and the two holidays invoke symbols, like eggs, signifying rebirth and renewal.

With the recent election in Rome of Pope Francis, the humble pontiff from the Americas, one senses the soft spirit of religious revival in the air.

The 10-part national cable TV series "The Bible" is drawing large ratings. And, for a few days, the difficulties of modern Middle East realities were masked by pretty pictures of an American president in the Holy Land.

Is this all hinting at a fourth Great Religious Awakening in the U.S.?

In 1630, Puritan settlers arrived, led by future Massachusetts Bay colony Gov. John Winthrop, who viewed his flock as biblical, predestined and chosen to create a religious "City on a Hill" in the "New Zion."

The First Great Awakening, in the 1730's, drew people close to God in devotion and in fear of His judgment. Prayer and fasting and charismatic preaching by John Edwards and George Whitfield moved youths and adults toward a more disciplined Christian observance.

The Second Great Awakening, from the late 18th century into the 19th century, was a religious revival that influenced temperance, abolition, even women's suffrage.

The Third Great Awakening, in the second half of the 19th century, saw active missionary work, new religious denominations, and a Social Gospel approach to contemporary issues.

Today, the United States remains a religious land, quite pluralistic, and devoted to the First Amendment of the Constitution, which assures no state-established religion.

The debates of our day fall under the First Amendment's Free Exercise clause. Shall a doctor be mandated to provide family health care services, or shall a baker be forced to provide a wedding cake to same-sex couples, against their sincerely held religious faith?

One-fifth of the U.S. public – and a third of adults under 30 – were religiously unaffiliated in 2012, the highest percentages ever noted in Pew Research Center polls. Increasing numbers of younger Americans are disaffiliated from formal worship services, although a majority maintain a belief in God and assert some spirituality.

Noteworthy is the New Atheism movement. Nonbelievers and secularists have not been shy about their confident expression. They don't agree that we are a nation under God. In God, they do not trust.

Freedom of conscience and religious liberty demands that our nation accommodate, welcome and even learn from, the widest possible range of religious faiths, including those who do not share roots in Judeo-Christian foundational texts and traditions.

There is no religious test for office, or for citizenship, in the United States. And so, even while a majority of religious citizens find joy and meaning, and deep connection, with the words God Bless America, our nation must remain free enough to allow the challenge of those who do not rise in shared belief.

Larry Greenfield is fellow in

American studies at

the Claremont Institute.

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